Becoming Free
by matsuoka gou
Summary: Teal is a 16 year old girl who has a passion for swimming. When the poster to join the new swim team comes up, she leaps for the opportunity to represent an actual team instead of herself. The only problem? She can't dive.
1. Problems and Dilemmas

**Note: This is my first time trying an OC. I don't know where it will go and if anyone will even read it but I hope its okay. If anything at all seems Mary-Suish, pleeeease tell me!**

****I had practiced swimming for ages, but I knew I was missing something. That was why I was stood in the empty swimming baths looking down at the water below. I shivered in my swimsuit. I had just about mastered the technique of the actual stroke, but I was afraid of diving. And that was the fear I had to conquer.

I was trying to bottle up some courage to do it, but as I looked down I realised that I was scared as hell. I hated diving. I loved swimming, I was pretty good at swimming, but I had never dived in my life. I still sometimes had troubles jumping in ever since that time I broke my ankle when I accidentally jumped in too shallow. I should have gone deeper as I got taller, but I was just so scared of jumping in, diving in, anything.

My swimming instructor had started to try to teach me but abandoned it once I proved that I would probably never be able to dive. He just gave up and said that he couldn't teach me anymore. Now I was stuck without an instructor. The news that I would no longer take lessons would be too much for my parents, which was why they thought I had a lesson now.

"Breathe, Teal," I murmured to myself. Teal is my name. Teal means a sort of blue colour, which fits, because I am a swimmer. A swimmer who can't dive. What a laugh Kaitlyn would have over that if I still lived in England.

Yeah, I did live in England, then Mum said we had to move to Japan. I'd taken Japanese lessons because my grandma is Japanese and my family dates back centuries of Japanese relatives. My mum was born in London by complete accident. My grandma was due to leave back to Japan to have the baby but it came a week early. So my mum was born in England and my grandma went crazy.

After Mum had me, she knew English and Japanese, so she taught me English first. Then she taught me what she could of Japanese and then I had Japanese lessons to finish off. It was hard. I couldn't draw the symbols so it was difficult to write. It was hard enough with my dyslexia. Then I had to learn a whole new alphabet.

Nowadays at school, I slack off in Literature because it's way too hard. But the school is learning English and it's too easy. All my so-called friends struggle to spell in English, and I have to spend the whole lesson writing lines and lines of English sentences. I wish I could just skip out on school completely. I don't have any real friends who I actually like, no boyfriend...

Then one day something happened. I saw a poster saying 'join the swim team'. There was a swim team? But I couldn't dive...maybe I could learn...I checked the writing again and gasped. A swim team! The school had a swim team! I almost jumped for joy. I loved swimming. This would be perfect. Except for the relays they'd have and competitions, where I'd have to dive into the water...

My face fell again. If I joined the team, I didn't want to let them down. So I had to learn how to dive. Now.


	2. Isolated

**Another chapter that gives a bit more insight into Teal's family and her life right now. Sorry that it's short and simple, but hopefully you'll enjoy it and wait for the plot to come!**

I had always sat on this brick wall to eat lunch; from the day I started kindergarten to now. It's funny how time flies, and when you look back at it, you feel like it was only mere months ago.

I stood there with my backpack secured by one strap, the other dangling loose. My lunchbox was next to me but I hadn't opened it yet. I was just kind of spaced out, wondering how I'd learn to dive. Lessons? Scuba diving? Definitely not scuba diving. Did they even do lessons just for diving? Nobody wanted to waste their time trying to teach somebody who has already mastered most of the techniques. They want to teach beginners so they have more to work with. I sighed and opened my lunchbox.

There was the usual inside. I ate most of it, and picked at the apple. I hated apple skin and my dad knew that. Or did he remember? He and my mother had split up two years ago. My dad had a new girlfriend. My mum was still single. I hated staying at my dad's place, partly because it was an hour-long bus ride to school and he just had his girlfriend on his lap in the evenings, kissing. Sometimes they went further than kissing and those were the times I was thankful I brought my headphones with me.

I sometimes feel glad to be back at Mum's.

After picking all the apple skin I could off, I bit into it. I saw some of my 'friends' messing around without me. They always did that 'girly' chat, and joined nail pampering clubs and did each other's makeup. I didn't have time to faff around in the mornings when I was at my dad's, and at my mum's she is too busy to teach me how to do makeup. Katrina came to my house to teach me so all I do is apply mascara at my mum's house, and foundation. But they all put eye makeup on and really subtle blush and lip gloss so they look pitch perfect. They bring their lip balm to school while my lips are chapped all day because Mum doesn't approve of all the popular beauty products.

It's not fair. I'm 16. And I want my own life. Then my thoughts went back to diving.

_Screw off._


End file.
